part of this answer is abstract and the other is more practical. i would say i never feel ashamed of any subject matter that i incorporate into my writing. the only things i ever feel embarrassed about are my fetish pwp works, and i don't really post those online. i'm still coming to terms with my armpit kink!!! for me, some of that is gender related--a lot of my kinks are very popular in m/m scenes, especially m/m created by gay men, but they're considered taboo and deviant in m/f fiction, so there are some very deep-rooted hangups there. that's a totally different story for a different day.

with that out of the way, i'm guided by one very strong principle when i create art: i believe artists have a moral and intellectual imperative to create repulsive things. self-indulgent things, objectionable things. not every single individual artist, of course, but as a group, i truly assert that to purge the "problematic" from our works is to reject our basic humanity and the humanity of others. consider what lives within you. what arouses you, what disgusts you, what intrigues you. art ideally asks questions and sometimes posits an answer. people now are so accustomed to facile corporate slop that they now believe art must 1.) make us feel better about the state of things (humanity, the world, etc.), 2.) be declarative of our most superficial values, or 3.) both. i unequivocally reject this. the way i see it is that we all desire pleasure and violence of some kind. the people who are most vocal about this being morally unacceptable are the same people responsible for some of the most heinous harassment and cruelty you can conceive of--or, at the societal level, much worse. thus, they channel their need for pleasure and violence into abusing others. it's still there, whether you want to believe it or not. they're surrendering to it in the basest way. i choose to satisfy myself in my writing. gross art puts us in touch with the entirety of ourselves. every time you sit down to write something problematic or self-indulgent, you honor yourself and others. even if i feel some embarrassment or trepidation brewing in me, i take it as a sign that i'm on the right path. if i were totally detached from the subject matter, why would i even write it?

now, that doesn't help much when it comes to actually sitting down and writing the thing, so to that i say: there's a pot for every lid. no matter how self-indulgent you might think something is, i can guarantee you with my whole chest that someone is absolutely fucking desperate to read it, and they might not even know it until they see it. that's why i opened with the abstract stuff: consider what a kindness it is to fulfill yourself and others in that way. even if you have no intention of making your writing public, the process of writing transgressive fiction gives you something in return, whether it's as simple as plain old sexual gratification or as complex as exploring your fears and old wounds.

also, think of any time you've giggled and twirled your hair and kicked your feet while reading something fucked up. guess what?? you can do that with your own writing too!!! call me narcissistic as much as you like, but i re-read my old stuff often and always think "damn op where'd you get such good taste??" this is what i wish for you, anon.

so contrary to what i wrote yesterday, i do not actually have a massive diatribe about p5 at the ready, especially since most of my grievances are very subjective and relative to other games in the series. tl;dr: it's style over substance and the conflict/themes feel incredibly juvenile and, more than anything, cynical compared to its predecessors. p4 was a harbinger of that, i suppose, but i felt that there were more things that worked in p4's favor to make it compelling, even if i still don't think it's that good: a smaller scope in terms of setting and narrative arc (killing god notwithstanding), more compelling character dynamics, and more humanistic themes. now, to be fair, iirc the cynical tone was informed by real world events in japan either shortly before or during development. nonetheless, i assert that the story has a bunch of bark with little bite.

it's difficult to articulate exactly what i mean because p5 still has so many of the ingredients that made me love the previous games, but i guess it's like me trying to make cream cheese frosting the other day and the first time i made it, it was basically Cream Cheese Chunk Sugar Soup because the proportions of the ingredients was completely off. it had all the things necessary to make delicious frosting, but i tried eyeballing it instead of measuring it out like i normally do. that's what p5 feels like to me. the flavors of those ingredients aren't there. they don't come together in a smooth and cohesive way. it has all the components of a fantastic game, which is why most people will tell you that it is a fantastic game, but it tastes off to me. texture wrong

i also only like yusuke and makoto LOL the characters did not resonate with me at all, which is a shame.